Miami defends the belt, 40–23, on the road at West Virginia.
AP poll, week 10: Miami No. 1 at West Virginia unranked · No. 1 that week: NC State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Miami came in 749 days into reign #253, which began with a win over Florida State, with 25 defenses already behind it; this was its 26th defense. Miami went on to defend it 5 more times before Ohio State took it on January 3, 2003, 818 days after the reign began.
For West Virginia this was its 7th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
It was the 2nd of 2 belt games between the two; going in, Miami led the belt series 1–0; all-time Miami leads 2–0.
About this game
Miami traveled to West Virginia on October 26, 2002, in week 10 of the regular season. West Virginia won 40-23, but Miami retained the belt as the defending champion.
Written by Claude, strictly from this site’s own record of the game — the score and what it meant for the belt. CFBD doesn’t have a box score for games this old, so nothing here is invented beyond what’s verifiably on file.
Sources Box score at ESPN · Game record: College Football Data (id 222990277) · This game in the downloadable dataset